There is a burst of whispered interjections -- "Whoa!" and "Cool!" -- when the kids see the rows of snowshoes sticking out of the snow.

Earlier, in a brief in-class presentation, ranger and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest youth and community engagement coordinator Tessa Rough showed photos of the snowshoes. But most of the Index ...Read more

Mother Nature answered the prayers of anglers, bait shop owners and resorters last week with an improbable mix of rain, wind and sunshine that unlocked frozen lakes in time for last weekend's walleye and northern pike fishing opener.

Rick Horton of Grand Rapids, Minn., was just back from a spring turkey when he noticed the ticks, about a dozen of them, dug into his skin.

"They were several on my back, between my shoulder blades. And several in places I can't mention," said Horton, who spent three days crawling around in Kansas prairie grass to shoot a tom turkey. "I was ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- The fishing season for Jordan Wein and Aaron Claus won't start for another month or so, but already they're predicting a much bigger haul than the 12,000 bronze-colored beauties they scored last year.

Carp Solutions, an upstart private company founded three years ago by a professor at the University of Minnesota, removes unwanted...Read more

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ON THE GUNFLINT TRAIL, Minn. -- She came to the north woods in 1965 from a little farm town on the prairies of western Minnesota. She was a college kid, and she had taken a job at a resort on Hungry Jack Lake north of Grand Marais.

Luana Brandt remembers the lanky Swede, Carl Brandt, who came by that summer from his parents' resort on nearby ...Read more

ON WISCONSIN'S BRULE RIVER -- Bruce Koepke slipped his hand under the young brown trout and quickly removed his pink yarn fly from its lip. It was nearly midday on Saturday, opening day of the early trout season on Wisconsin's Brule River.

Koepke returned the fish to the water.

The Brule opener is a hallowed tradition for many steelhead ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- When Minnesotans think of public lands, they're apt to focus on state parks, state forests, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, other parts of the Superior National Forest, and the mighty Chippewa National Forest in the heart of the north country.

But all around the state in lesser-known pockets of the wild, nature is ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Len Ferrington has one eye on the weather and the other on Minnesota House File 3352.

The longtime University of Minnesota entomology professor is awaiting approval of a $400,000 grant to continue the last segment of a study that's been going on for a dozen years into the different growth rates of trout in the Driftless Area of ...Read more

DETROIT LAKES, Minn. -- It may not be "Duck Dynasty," but a Detroit Lakes partnership has found its own small niche in the duck call business -- it allows hunters to put cremated ashes from their beloved hunting dogs into the duck call itself.

No, you don't get a mouthful of ashes whenever you blow the duck call -- Deadshot Custom Call Company ...Read more